I am a clinician scientist and professor at the University of Montreal, performing both fundamental and clinical research. I am also Head of the Axis of Research “Immune Diseases and Cancer” at CHU Sainte-Justine, Montreal.

 

In my lab, I use cell engineering to pursue research that can be classified under 4 large themes:

(1) Research on cytotoxic immune cells; (2) Gene-engineering for cancer immunotherapy; (3) Modelling immune-mediated diseases: both immunodeficiencies and immune dysregulation (viral & autoimmune) using humanized mouse models, and (4) Clinical research in primary immune deficiency.

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NK cells are the focus of most of the projects in my lab. In the pursuit of developing new immunotherapies for various diseases, our work encompasses fundamental and translational projects such as:

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1. Deciphering the cytotoxic and metabolic events taking place when a NK cell is facing a cancer cell.

2. Understanding the impact of genetic immune disorders affecting these cytotoxic and metabolic events on NK cell functions.

3. Engineering NK cells to increase their efficacy, either by knocking-out inhibitory signals or transducing them with activating receptors.

4. Tailoring chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) construct for NK cell signaling.

5. Developing NK cell-based immunotherapy using inducible pluripotent cells (iPSC).

6. Designing synthetic promotors that would drive gene expression exclusively in cytotoxic cells such as NK.

7. Testing NK-cell based immunotherapies in pre-clinical models of cancer and infectious diseases.

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